Battlescars
by Isica
Summary: The Weasley and Potter families encouraged open and honest discussion. Which was good, as the elder generation's battle scars were felt by their children.
1. Chapter 1

Battlescars

 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing. All hail Queen Rowling.

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The Weasley and Potter families had always encouraged open and honest discussion. But some things always remained unspoken.

...

Fred always knew his father wasn't talking to him when George screamed out in his sleep. He knew the story of his uncle Fred. But he always wondered why his father looked so sad at Grandma Molly's annual gift of a plain Christmas jumper.

After he found a Hogwarts trunk stuffed full of them, and twenty photographs with two identical boys emblazoned with "F" & "G", he stopped wondering. He felt sad for his dad, and although he was only nine, wondered how he could fix the situation.

...

'Grandma Molly, could you help me with a Christmas gift for Dad this year?'

'Of course dear, what do you need?'

After Fred had explained his idea his Grandma had unexpectedly hugged him and given him some of her secret stash of biscuits, freshly baked. She promised to work on the problem right away and, after securing a few things from Fred himself, set to work.

Christmas morning that year was quite cold, fortunately. As soon as Fred got up, he slipped on his dressing gown to hide the surprise, then picked up the present and came downstairs.

Finally, after many hours, they were down to the last present. Fred handed his father his gift. He kept his dressing gown wrapped tightly around him, for fear it would slip loose and spoil the surprise. 'This one is from Grandma Molly,' he said. 'But I helped.'

George opened the gift without much interest. Another jumper, he suspected. No doubt his mother was trying to rope his son into taking up knitting. Well, at least a badly knitted one might excuse him from having to wear...and his heart caught in his mouth.

Across the front, knitted in gold thread, gleaming against the green was an enormous "G." He shook it out and stared at it. Then he watched as his son slowly took off his dressing gown to reveal an identical jumper, with an "F" across it.

His wife took one look at his face and promptly shooed her daughter into the kitchen, despite her protests. She closed the door and left them alone.

'Do you like it?' Fred said uncertainly. His father was very pale.

Somehow, George managed to speak around the lump in his throat. 'How did you find out?' he asked.

'I found the trunk,' Fred answered honestly. 'I thought...you'd like it? I thought that for one more Christmas there could be an "F" and "G" again.'

George choked at this and despite his best efforts, the tears slid down his cheek.

'Dad?' Fred said, worried.

George managed to control himself and pulled his son in for a hug. 'This is the best Christmas present ever,' he whispered into Fred's ear. 'Thank you.'

Fred hugged his dad back. 'Love you Dad,' he said.

When they all turned up at the Burrow later for Christmas dinner, George and Fred caused a sensation when they walked in hand in hand wearing their matching Christmas jumpers. There were a lot of tears from the women, a lot of suspicious turning away and quiet rubbing of eyes from the men and a loud demanding of photographs from Grandma Molly.

Although the nightmares didn't stop for George, now when he woke up he would look at the two framed photographs next to his bed; one of him and his twin in their matching Christmas jumpers, and the other of him and his son in theirs.

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 **Please Review!** I have a number of other ideas, but I want opinions of this one first.


	2. Chapter 2

Battlescars

 **Disclaimer:** As before.

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Chapter 2: Hugo & Rose

Their mother was perfect, Hugo and Rose thought as they looked at her. She wasn't beautiful like their Aunt Fleur but her flaws harmonised and humanised her.

Their father felt the same, Rose could tell. Their parents were one of those couples who argued frequently, but were happier arguing with each other than agreeing with anyone else. Her father would listen to her mother talk at him as though her voice was the most beautiful thing in the world.

Her mother was brilliant too. The whole family agreed. Both her Dad and Uncle Harry freely acknowledged that they wouldn't have passed classes without her. When she was younger, Rose was taught to read by her mother. At some point, she and Hugo realised the sole blemish on their mother, the faded red marks across her arm, was lettering. One day, she and Hugo traced it. Their mother snatched her arm away like she had been burned.

'No!' she screamed, loud enough and with such pain to bring their father running and promptly throw them out of the room.

Later, much later, their father called them downstairs. Rose looked around. Their mother wasn't home.

'Hugo, Rose,' their father said. 'I have to tell you about something very grown up. You need to listen to me. It's the story of how Mummy, Daddy and Uncle Harry and spent what should have been their last year at Hogwarts together.'

Rose knew some of this story even at eight years old; her mummy, daddy and Uncle Harry had run away and defeated an evil wizard named Voldy. That's what Grandma Molly always said when people stared at her family. Well, she never said the name of the wizard, but daddy always called him that.

Her daddy was speaking again. 'When we were hiding from Voldy, an evil witch captured us.'

Hugo and Rose gasped, suitably impressed.

But their father wasn't finished. 'While we were prisoners, Uncle Harry and I were in a dungeon. But your mother,' and he paused, breathing heavily, 'your mother was taken away by the evil witch, and the evil witch hurt her. That's what those marks on your mother's arm are.'

'What happened to the evil witch?' Hugo asked.

Their daddy grinned. 'Grandma Molly killed her.'

'Grandma Molly?' Rose said astonished.

'The evil witch tried to kill your Aunt Ginny,' their father said.

Rose, who was just old enough to recognise her grandmother's protectiveness laughed, but quickly stopped when she noticed her father had become serious again.

'The marks on your mother's arm spell out a word,' he said. 'The word is a filthy, disgusting word. If you ever, in your entire lives, say that word in this family's hearing and especially to your mother, you will no longer be welcome in this family. You are both old enough to know what an Unforgivable is; this word is unforgivable in this family.'

At the time, Rose and Hugo had nodded their terrified obedience and scurried away. As she grew up and read more of the story that made their family famous, Rose understood why her father had been so severe that day. She never touched that part of her mother's arm again.

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	3. Chapter 3

Battlescars

 **Disclaimer:** As before.

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Chapter 3: Scorpius

Scorpius Malfoy was mesmerised by the shape on his father's arm. Although his father had told him the whole truth at a young age, it still fascinated him. Such a small little pattern, it held so much power and commanded so much fear. He read everything in the extensive library about the wizard who Marked his father, grandfather and countless others. Although he knew he would never be tempted into the so-called "cult of Voldemort," a fringe group of Wizard society who argued that some of his ideas were not completely crazy, there was still something about that pattern that drew him in.

Watching his son and knowing full well the dangers of parental choices and of the cult of Voldemort, Draco designed and had a magical tattoo inked over the top of his fading Mark.

If his son was going to look at his arm, he damn well wasn't going to see a Dark wizard.

Scorpius became an Auror. Draco has never been prouder.

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Sorry for the short chapter, but please **Review!**


	4. Chapter 4

Battlescars

 **Disclaimer:** As before.

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Chapter 4: James, Albus, Lily & Teddy.

The Potter children were never going to escape the past, and rather than hide it from them, Harry and Ginny determined that the best way was to tell the story gradually.

By the time the Potter children were eleven, ten and seven they knew most of it. James was almost Hogwarts age, so Harry and Ginny had told him the whole story, removing the odd torture of his Aunt Hermione of course. Harry also showed him a list of names of the people who'd died in the war, with special mention of those who were closest to him.

What Harry didn't know, James never told him, was that he knew the names. Since early childhood the Potter children had been regularly woken up by their parents' nightmares. Lily and Albus would creep into James' room and would sit with a torch (a gift from their Grandad Arthur), huddle round a piece of paper and write down every single name that they (mostly their father) shouted in their sleep. The number of names and who they were signified how bad the nightmares were and the kind of mood their parents would be in the next morning. That day, Albus and Lily would distract their parents while James would check the book in the study ( _The Second Wizarding War_ , compiled by the Order of the Phoenix, edited by H.J. Granger) for any unknown names. It became the ritual of their childhood.

It was always bad during certain times of the year. Halloween, Christmas sometimes, May and June. And it was always worse when their parents added commentary to the names. James didn't think he could stomach many more howls of grief and despair whenever Sirius' name was mentioned.

Their father's nightmares were bad enough, but their mother's, although rarer, took it to a whole new dimension. Lily refused to sleep in her own room for a week after a particularly bad night and bunked up with Albus, who was secretly glad to have her. Their father cried out but their mother? She _screamed_. And Ginny Potter could outscream a banshee. All three children could remember that one horrible night they spent sobbing in James' room, with the paper left blank.

Their mother knew they woke up, for what mother wouldn't? James knew she knew and there was a silent agreement that their father was to remain ignorant. Of course, had Ginny known the full story it would have broken her heart, but she didn't and James kept it that way.

Ginny's nightmares often came forward when Teddy came to stay. Because Harry and Ginny made a point of answering Teddy's questions, their memories would often spill over into their dreams. When Teddy stayed over, he would participate in the ritual as well, his hair turning bubblegum pink as Ginny screamed out his mother's name over and over, or Harry apologising endlessly to his father for his death.

In the morning, Harry would always apologise if he kept him awake, and Teddy would always reply by holding up his earphones and making some joke about the 'typical noisy Potter house, I always come prepared,' and Harry would smile a sad smile because his Tonks and Sirius side was showing; he was related to both of them after all.

The "Count of the Dead" was eventually revealed to Harry accidentally when he was helping Lily pack for her first term at Hogwarts. He and Ginny were nothing short of horrified, despite the fact the nightmares had mostly ended when James had started at the school. It would take another generation for the damage to be erased completely. Lily, at ninety-six, could still remember half of the names her father shouted in his sleep.

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Of course the Potter children would have had their own rooms, even when young, because Ginny remembered her brothers sharing and Harry remembered the cupboard. And they would have definitely had a spare room solely for Teddy's use.

 **Review Please!** This may be the last one, but if you want any more Battlescars, write them in the review section.


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